School Days - Freezes

[Danyo]

So, ever since the install, or even before that I’ve been running into issues. At first there was the problem off the installer stopping towards the end, but fixed that by transferring the files manually. Then the problems with the script since the it was a faulty installation, but that got fixed with the registry fix. Then I have to delete the config.dat every time I load it up, otherwise I have no sound. Now it keeps freezing every 5 minutes or so, if not less. It’s pretty much unplayable, especially since I also have to delete the config.dat every single time.

Anyone knows why it freezes or what could be the issue?

I was really looking forward to playing this, but so far I’ve been really disappointed.

[Makoto]

If you are playing in fullscreen mode, please try playing in windowed mode instead. That should improve stability. We are currently working to resolve the stability issue, as well as the sound issue with config.dat.

[Danyo]

Yeah, it’s definitely a full screen issue, I think it might be related to having more then 1 monitor, since the people I’ve asked that also played it only had issues if said people had more then one monitor active. Also, it’s fine if I go windowed to save, and then go back full screen, the freezes don’t happen. I’m not sure if this is helpful information or not, but it’s my findings so far.

[Makoto]

Please check to see if setting your visuals to the Windows 7 Basic layout helps the freezing problem.

Also, does alt+f4 do anything while the game is frozen?

[Danyo]

@Makoto

Please check to see if setting your visuals to the Windows 7 Basic layout helps the freezing problem.

Also, does alt+f4 do anything while the game is frozen?

My settings are set to windows 7 basic layout as far as I know.

Alt+f4 does nothing, I have to kill the process in task manager.

[raincoat_superstar]

As requested in the official thread, here’s the report from my last crash:

Faulting application name: SCHOOLDAYS HQ.exe, version: 1.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4fb4b971
Faulting module name: igdumd32.dll, version: 8.15.10.2302, time stamp: 0x4d558a0a
Exception code: 0xc0000005

Seems igdumd32.dll is related my laptop’s integrated Intel graphics chipset, so I’ll try running the game with the NVIDIA processor and see if it’s more stable (though the crashes have been fairly infrequent). I’ll also update the Intel driver, as it’s rather out of date…

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor Intel(R) Core™ i3 CPU M 350 @ 2.27GHz, 2266 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
4GB RAM

[Russo_Turisto]

The only freezing I encountered was when I tried to skip credits between episodes using the skip button. The screen fades, but the next episode never starts, the game remains unresponsive and can only be closed via task manager. This happened twice (in different episodes), and sometimes the credits skip fine.

P.S. I play in windowed mode exclusively, so it’s not a fullscreen issue.

[Makoto]

@Xilexio

I think I found a solution.
I am running the game under Windows 7 @ processor Core 2 Duo. The game froze frequently while I was playing under fullscreen mode. So I tried setting processor for it, so that only one core would be used. Now that I am running it only on one core, it seems stable.

So, my solution is to set the processor affinity under the processes in task manager to use only 1 CPU (CPU-0 for example). For more information how to set processor affinity, look for example here: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-ti … n-windows/ and set it to CPU-0 only.

Thanks for the information. We’re going to update the patch so that the game will use one CPU by default.

[raincoat_superstar]

Is anyone else still getting black screen freezes when forwarding past the episode credits, post-patching? It seemed to be fine for a while but recently it’s been happening maybe 3 out of 4 times I try to skip. Now that I’m experimenting to get the remaining endings, it’s rather maddening.

Event viewer doesn’t really give any information beyond “it stopped working”, so I dunno.

[Makoto]

Does it happen in windowed mode too?

[raincoat_superstar]

Hi Makoto.

Yes it does. I play exclusively in windowed mode. (School Days is so emotionally draining that I need the sight of my desktop to help keep me anchored to reality…)

I also had a random freeze during a scene while using the fast-forward at 32x speed, so I don’t use that any more either. And I’ve found that fast-forwarding through credits at ANY speed can cause the game to freeze at the transition to the save screen.